Commons Canvas Training

Length: 0.5-2 days.Purpose: Using the CANVAS approach teaches participants how to use the canvas to capture understanding of the financial flows in a commons initiative in order to create the basis for a business plan.Why attend? Learning to use the CANVAS will give you a good tool to help take your initiative from idea to viable enterprise.Main contents: The CANVAS method, how to unitize your offerings, finding alternative funding solutions, understanding membership and creating business plan. Includes: How to capture data for Business Plan, Manual and pro-forma business plan in Excel.

Creating a business model in a conventional way is daunting enough. But how can you create a viable financial model for a whole commons initiative, community, sustainable initiative or social enterprise? It IS possible as many initiatives up and running demonstrate, but you need to find a balance between achieving sustainability, creating the operations you want, and balancing the budget. The CANVAS is based on a participatory approach using a large board. The canvas method is designed as a way to work through possibilities to, for example, ensure your commons initiative is financially viable, plug the leaks in your local economy, to grow from your Transition initiative into a Reconomy- initiative social enterprise or to make your Permaculture design into a thriving enterprise.

OBJECTIVES
To teach the canvas methodology so that participants can use it to support the development of their own initiatives.

WORKSHOPS ARE FOR:

Those involved in the financial aspects of an initiative that are aiming towards sustainability, or permaculturists who want to add a financial dimension to their design work.

CONTENTS

The eleven blocks

Clarifying intention: from money to what money buys

Stakeholders as investors

Identifying services and unitizing them

Supply chains and customers

Finding resources

Infrastructure; investment and return

Rent pooling: counting all revenue possibilities

Putting management into place

Waste as a resource

Legal forms: mapping legal form to intention

Agreements as the basis of stakeholder cooperation

Permaculture principles related to initiative finance

Pulling it all together in a business plan

WORKSHOP APPROACH
This participatory workshop takes you through the method step by step, applying it to a chosen case.

The workshop is accompanied by material for later reference: a booklet and a template business plan in excel format adapted to the workshop outputs.

WORKSHOP LENGTH
We offer a range of workshop configurations, from an introduction of a few hours to a tailored initiative -focused workshop of two days to a train the trainer course that is five days.

COURSE LEADERStephen Hinton has a background as a management trainer and consultant. He is a co-founder of Transition Sweden and is active in the eco-village movement through involvement in the Eco- Village Änggärdet. Stephen served on the Board of the Swedish Co-operative no-interest JAK BANKEN.

About

The Commons Finance Canvas was created by Stephen Hinton as a tool to help communities and commons initiatives plan and run their operations in an economically viable way. Stephen consults in sustainable development at Stephen Hinton Consulting